


the element of surprise

by kuro49



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:31:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7239229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is looking. He is looking. He isn’t seeing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the element of surprise

**Author's Note:**

> solely inspired by the two of them quipping back and forth about trading tricks in nysm2 because teacher and student is so good.
> 
> more gen than slash, so really it is pre-slash, but you can squint your eyes for more or less.

 

Merritt thinks this is the most poetic he has been all his life when he jumps off of the edge of 5 Pointz to join Jack in anonymity. The scatter of cards that surrounds him reminds him of the kid if nothing else.

“—Oh, _damn_ , they really weren’t kidding when they gave you the Hermit.”

Merritt takes that thought right back.

He drops his hat then his keys on the kitchen counter and lets the kid follow him in to take a peek around. He has an idea that finding Jack in the city is no coincidence but Merritt doesn't mind letting Jack think he has pulled another act of fate over him.

Merritt's place is not as bad as places go. It is a roof over his head and the water stain hasn’t completely taken over the entire ceiling just yet. There is a door. There is a lock. There is even an added chain on the door that Merritt installed himself, not that it matters to Jack even if it does to Merritt but really, it is the principle of the thing at the end of the day. Merritt has had everything taken from him and Jack has lifted every last thing he has from everyone else.

Still, the wooden crate flipped upside down in front of the single armchair is something else.

Jack points to it and asks out of morbid curiosity. “Coffee table?”

“Works great as a dinner table too.”

It is far from the kinds of dumps Jack’s ended up in over the years but their year in the deep pockets of Tressler must have really spoiled him when he can only make a face at Merritt’s answer.

The truth is probably something simpler. Something along the lines of Merritt never bothering to find a proper little coffee table for himself when he first moves into this little apartment and calls it a safe house in the aftermath of New York City. When he just so happens to come across the wooden crate that some of his things have been shipped in, a quick flip of it upside down and here it is still today. But Merritt is not about to tell Jack any of that.

Kid’s got to earn it if he plans to keep this up.

 

He is sitting in the man's favourite armchair when he comes home and he is looking at him with a frown when he points this out.

"The hat isn't really you."

Since that first time he’s brought the kid to his place, he has been showing up more on than off. Merritt walks into his apartment and almost has to congratulate himself out loud when he doesn’t just turn around and walk back out the front door. If it has been Atlas, and he is sure Atlas knows where he is (there is no way he doesn’t know where any of the Horsemen are), Merritt figures he couldn’t say the same thing.

“And you sure talk a lot for someone who is dead.”

Jack Wilder just grins and settles even further into the seat cushions like he has claimed it for himself.

“I guess whoever said to sleep when you're dead is wrong.”

Merritt still hasn’t asked why he is here instead of anywhere else. He is beginning to think it might not matter when Jack is holding up a deck and smirking like he has just learned a brand new trick.

 

He is The Hermit, and he is Death.

“Do it like _this_.”

It comes second nature to Death when he teaches The Hermit by demonstration, whipping one playing card across the empty underground parking garage.

Jack turns to Merritt and extends the next one out of the deck held inside his palm. Merritt looks at him like he’s got to be fucking with him. When Jack steels himself (biting down on the inside of his cheeks just to keep from smirking at the face Merritt makes), Merritt only snags the card and grumbles something that sounds just like: _What ever happened to baby steps_.

When the card goes spinning to land barely three feet in front of them, no amount of tongue in cheek keeps the sharp bark of laughter that Jack lets out.

Merritt glances over at him, giving him a matching steely face.

“Come on, that was funny.”

Jack sends another playing card spiraling to the far end of the parking garage before digging an elbow into Merritt’s side.

“Ha, _ha_.”

The tone is entirely lost when Jack just laughs and makes him try again. It takes five more failed attempts to convince Merritt that maybe he should just stick to what he's good at and leave the rest to the kids. But Jack doesn't look like he agrees and makes the rest of the deck in his hand rain down over them.

“How about we start with some sleight of hand first?”

Jack holds up another deck and Merritt has a hard time guessing where he hid that when the kid is in nothing but a threadbare tee and a pair of pants that cling on the side of too tight.

“Put your party tricks away, kid. I’m no amateur.”

“My party tricks are the foundation and you clearly need it, McKinney.”

Jack raises an eyebrow at the single playing card that is barely three feet away from Merritt’s feet. He figures, a master mentalist like the great Merritt McKinney wouldn’t miss such an obvious dig when that is a Joker that has landed face up. He can only grin when Merritt only lets out a light scoff before taking a card from the deck in Jack’s palm.

Because this is how he chooses to pay his due, and Merritt hasn't walked away just yet.

 

With a first hand demonstration to show him just how it is done, when Jack asks, Merritt teaches him the same.

The sound when his fingers snap together makes Jack jostle awake in the crook of his arms. The two of them are standing in the middle of the room and Merritt has eyes the colour of the sky. Jack’s cheeks stain red when he realizes that he has said that last bit out loud. Merritt just laughs because he has been playing the fool between the two of them and it feels good to finally get the better of the kid.

“You mean these ol’baby blues, Jack?”

On principle, Jack understands mentalism and hypnotism but he still nearly ends up taking a step back. His kind of magic is tangible, this is not. He nearly stumbles before he catches himself. Coming up with empty hands and an empty mind is barely something to blame.

“Teach me again.”

Merritt doesn't raise his eyebrow at the determination, just directs Jack's gaze to him again and opens his mouth.

“Follow my lead.”

Merritt's hand darts up, he gives him a touch, and it is in both practice and technique that he has him at his whim when he slumps in his arms and there is just his voice as his sole focus. Jack Wilder can put his hand over his and teach him how to turn his wrist just right to get the card to spin out from between his fingertips.

Merritt McKinney can only try to do the same for him.

 

Jack doesn't think he can play dead to the world for as long as he has but the Eye has a plan and he may be a fool for trusting in it for so long. But he thinks he can live with it if it means he gets to stay with the Horsemen. He has already fixated on magic for as long as he's lived, what is the remainder of his life in comparison?

“The hat isn’t really you.”

He tells him this again, like it is a thing that he always comes back to. Jack doesn't expect an answer, so it is a surprise when he gets a straight one.

“The hat is the only thing that is mine.”

Jack looks at Merritt.

He looks at him and he looks at him but it isn’t until now that he sees him.

There is a pause where Jack bites down on his bottom lip like he does when he is thinking and then the kid is reaching out, snatching it off of his head and into his hands and things are hardly empty at all. He does a simple trick, nothing really compared to everything his hands can do with a deck of cards. When Jack tosses it in the air with a flip to catch it with the top of his head, the brim of it falling just a little too low, Merritt can only chuckle.

Merritt doesn’t have to say it but he wants to.

“It looks good on you, kid.”

When Jack smiles, the corner of his eyes crinkle and Merritt doesn't think he would have ever noticed that before now.

 


End file.
